It’s understandable that Sixers fans would be tuning in to watch summer league basketball games since those games are about as meaningless as the 82 the team played during the NBA’s regular season last winter.

The curiosity over whether Nerlens Noel can actually play or not was a drawing card. So the general conclusion was that the big guy needs time, that he’ll get better the more he plays.

That, of course, begs the question of why he wasn’t out on the floor for the last 10 games of that lost regular season, playing in real NBA games against real NBA players. If you read between the lines of the reports from the Sixers late in the season, you could tell Noel wanted to get out there. He was pronounced 100 percent fit and really, would a 10-minute run for a team playing out a 19-63 season really have ruined Sam Hinkie’s grand plan? Did anybody think that Noel was so good that he was going to elevate that group of D Leaguers to the point where the Sixers were going to rip off a 10-game winning streak and cost themselves precious ping-pong balls in the draft lottery?

Advertisement

It’s unclear when Hinkie became enamored with this idea of drafting an injured player and sitting him out for a whole year, whether the player likes it or not. Joel Embiid will probably be driving around looking for a playground pickup game sometime next April if the Sixers pull the same stunt with him. And Hinkie made it clear in his post-draft press conference that he has no intention of getting Embiid on the court next year.

So watch your summer league games if you must. But spare me the “Nerlens just needs to get some more experience” line following what figures to be another 60 losses or so next winter. The experience meter should have started running last season, not in a high school gym in Orlando on the Fourth of July weekend.